Method of making heels.



E E WINKLEY METHOD OF MAKING HEELS.

. APPUCATION FILED NOV. 18, I914- 1,285.531 Patented Nov. 19, 1918.

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Parana canton- EBASTUS E. 'WINKLEY, OF LYNN,

MASSACHUSETTS, ASSIGNOR, BY MESNE ASSIGN- MENTS, TO UNITED SHOE MACHINERY CORPORATION, OZE PATERSON, NEW JERSEY,

A CORPORATION OF NEW JERSEY.

METHOD OF MAKING HEELS.

Specification of Letters-Patent.

Patented Nov. 1a, 1918.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, ERAST'US E. WINKLEY, a citizen of the United States, residing at Lynn, in the county of Essex and State of Massachusetts, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Methods of Making Heels; and I do hereby declare the following to be a full, clear, and exact description of the invention, such as will enable others skilled in the art to which it appertains to make and use the same.

This invention relates to a method of making heels peculiarly, although not necessarily, applicable to heels from the cheaper heel-stock materials such as leatherboard or an analogous leather or paper composition.

The term heel is used indiscriminately by persons skilled in the art of making shoes and parts thereof, when referring to individual heels, to indicateeither a shaped heel, that is a heel prepared for application to a soled shoe, or a rough heel, which is hereinafter, for convenience, termed a heel block, that is a heel ready for the shaping operation. It is to be understood that the term heel is thus used throughout this specification.

Heretofore it has been customary to manufacture heels by dinking out singly a series of graded lifts which are thereafter assembled in a heel pile in proper sequence and lateral relation to provide for the desired pitch at the back of the finished heel. Such a method of manufacture has long been recognized as expensive in that a special die must be maintained in stock for each size of lift. Further, an undesirable waste of stock is incurred due to the fact that the die cuts, owing to the dies being the shape of a heel lift with a rounded back, cannot be completely interlocked over the stock during the dinking operation.

The object of the present invention is to provide a method of making heels which obviates the disadvantages attendant upon the earlier methods including an-elimination the manufacture of tion contemplates the production of a heel from a heel pile, or heel block as herein designated, the individual lifts of which are of polygonal form which block may then be shaped to the general form of a heel blank. Thereafter, the shaped heel block thus produced, may be compressed, as usual, into a commercial heel blank.

' As the character of the shaping step may vary in accordance with the views of the different shoe manufacturers it is contemplated that single heel blocks can be produced at one point and shipped to the various shoe factories where the blocks may be shaped by the manufacturers to suit their individual requirements.-

The invention consists in the method of making heels, the preferred manner of practising which is hereinafter described and defined both broadly and in detail in the appended claims. The invention may readily be practised by hand using hand cutters, or, if found desirable, suitable power actuated devices may be used.

The invention will be most readily understood by a reference to the accompanying drawings, illustrating the preferred manner of practising the invention, in which:

Figure 1 represents strips of heel stock material of graded widths, cut from a sheet or sheets Fig. 2 indicates the manner in which the strips shown in Fig. l are piled to produce a multiple heel block;

Fig. 3 shows a perspective of a single heel block severed from the multiple heel block;

Fig. 4 shows a perspective of the heel block of Fig. 3 having its rear corners slabbed 0E;

Fig.5 shows a perspective of a heel block and Fig. 6 shows a perspective of a heel blank.

In the following description the heel stock material of whatever character it may be, will, for convenience in nomenclature be referred to as leatherboard simply.-

In the preferred method of practising the invention the sheets of leatherboard are cut into straight-sided strips S (Fig. 1.) These strips are graded as to width in accordance with the widths of the various lifts which are to compose a heel. It is more convenient to cut a single sheet into strips all of the same width, but this is not essential and a single sheet may be cut into graded strips if this is found desirable. After the strips of leath'erboard have been produced a number are selected in accordance with the height of the particular heel to be produced, for example, for an 88 heel eight strips a, b, 0, (Z, 6, f, g, h, as shown in Fig. 1 are used. For a heel of greater or less height a greater or less number of strips are used. In Fig. 3 a 68 heel block is illustrated. This heel block A is produced by pasting, piling in stepped formation and placing under pressure until the paste is dry the desired number of graded strips a, etc., their edges at one side being placed in substantially the same vertical plane to form the flat breasts of the heels. This article, shown in Fig. 2, may be termed a multiple heel block M, as

the individual heel blocks A are formed therefrom by severing the block M by cuts on right lines in planes transverse to the surfaces of the block as indicated by the dotted lines 0;, b, c, d, the cuts being spaced apart a distance substantially equal to the desired width of the heels which are to be finally produced.

While the particular arrangement of the strips on the multiple heel block M as illustrated in Fig. 2 provides, after its division, the heel body shape required for a large majority of the heels which are made, espe cially for mens wear, for other types of heels, for example French heels having a out. under breast, the vertical side is not essential.

It will also be observed that in preparing the multiple heel block the material are so arranged relatively that its lateral faces, formed by the edges of the sheet material, form planes which closely approximate the pitch or angularity of the breast and back of the heels which are ultimately produced therefrom. Broadly considered, whatever may be the shape of the finished heel the pieces of sheet material forming the heel block are so selected as to area that when piled together the lateral surfaces of the block closely approximate the slope of the lateral surfaceof the finished heel relative to the planes of its heel seat and tread face. This is important as by reason of such selection of the sheet mastrips of sheet terial, stock is not wasted and the later shaping of the heel blocks is facilitated.

The heel block A may now be trimmed to the general form of a heel blank by any suitable shaping cutter acting along the dotted line Z to remove the rear corners and smooth the entire peripheral surface, producing the shaped heel block C shown in Fig. 5. It is considered preferable however, as a refinement of the invention, although not essential, to first bevel or slab off, with a straight bladed knife, the two rear corners of the heel block, as shown at r, producing the beveled heel block B of Fig. 4.. Thebeveling step produces a heel block in which less material need be removed by the shaping cuts thus making this step, easier for the operative and causing less wear on the shaping cutter.

After the trimming of-either of the heel blocks A or B into the shaped heel block C, the block C is ready to be compressed to produce the finished heel blank D (Fig. 6) having the desired peripheral contour, shape of heel seat, size mark, and other characteristics as may be desired.

As many tons of pressure are required to compress the heel this operation can be performed only by a machine. Any of the commercial heel compressing machines may be used such, for example, as that illustrated and described in Letters Patent of the United States to E. A. Tripp, No. 776,875, dated December 6, 1904.

It will be especially noted that each of the lifts of the heel blocks A or B are of polygonal form, that is, each portion of the periphery, front, back, etc., has a straight edge. Such heel blocks A and B, as illustrated in Figs. 3 and 4, are protected by claims in my copending application for a heel blank for boots and shoes filed March 23. 1918, Serial No. 224,172.

An important feature of the method resides in the production of the lifts wholly by knives having straight edges, or saws may be used, thus entirely doing away with-expensive dies, while yet obtaining as a resultant product a heel blank of a similar form to the heel blanks heretofore produced when the lifts were cut with dies.

A further important advantage of the present method of manufacturing heels resides in the fact that the heel blocks may be built in a few general sizes by the heel manufacturer and then shipped in quantity to the shoe manufacturer who at his'own factory shapes their lateral faces in accordance with the type of heel which he uses.

Those skilled in the art will readily recognize that the method of making heels herein described affords an organized method of manufacture of heels of the cheaper heel stock materials which is very simple and enables the heels to be produced with greater economy, while yet retainingin the product the more desirable qualities of heels 'manu factured from the more costly materials, together with additional qualities not obtainable in heels made by the earlier methods.

Having thus described the invention and the preferred method of practising it, yet recognizing that modifications and changes may be made in the sequence and character of the steps described and still fall within the spirit and scope of the invention, and having due regard to the important and novel feature of making heels from lifts of polygonal shape, the invention is definitely stated in its true scope in the following claims.

WVhat is claimed as new, is

1. The method of making heels which includes building a multiple heel block by superposing on each other a plurality of strips of heel stock material, of graded widths, in stepped formation having their edges at one side in substantially the same vertical plane to form the straight breasts of the heels, securing said strips together, and severing said multiple heel block into single heel blocks, each having a substantially straight breast and slanted back, by cutting through said block at intervals on right lines in planes transverse to the surfaces thereof.

2. The method of making heels which includes building a multiple heel block by superposing on each other a plurality of strips of heel stock material, of graded widths in stepped formation, having their edges at one side in substantially the same vertical plane to form the straight breasts of the heels, securing said strips together, severing said multiple heel block into single heel blocks, each having a substantially straight breast and slanted back by cutting through said block at intervals on right lines in planes transverse to the surfaces thereof, and then beveling 0r slabbing off the corners at the slanted backs of said single heel blocks.

3. The method of making heels which includes severing a sheet or sheets of heel stock material into straight sided strips graded as to width, piling said strips in stepped formation with their edges at one side in substantially the same vertical plane, securing said strips together, and severing the multiple heel block thus produced into single heel blocks by cutting through said block at intervals on right lines in planes transverse to the surfaces thereof.

4:. The method of making heels which includes severing a sheet or sheets of heel stock material into straight sided strips graded as to Width, piling said strips in stepped formation with their edges at one side in substantially the same vertical plane, securin said strips together, severing the multiple %1eel block thus produced into single heel blocks by cutting through said block at interv'a'lson right lines in planes'transverse duced into individual heel blocks, and shaping said heel blocks to the form of heel blanks by trimming the lateral surfaces thereof.

6. The method of making heels from sheet material, which includes a plurality of cutting operations in each of which a straight out is made completely across the sheet material and of which the final result is to divide the material into a plurality of polygonal lifts graded as to area; and which also includes the step of superposing a plurality of layers of the sheet material and securing them together; the combined result of the cutting and securing operations being the production of individual laminated heelblocks consisting of polygonal lifts.

7. The method of making heels which includes piling strips of heel stock material, of graded widths, on each other in stepped formation, securing said strips together, and cutting the multiple heel block thus formed at intervals throughout its length in planes transverse to the surface thereof to form individual heel blocks.

8. The method of making heels which includes severing sheet heel stock material into a plurality of strips of such width that when piled on each other an elongated, laminated, multiple heel block will be produced having its side lateral faces in planes closely approximating the pitch or angularity of the breast and back of the finished heel to be produced therefrom, piling and securing said strips together in the manner described, and dividing the multiple heel block thus produced into individual heel blocks by a plurality of cuts on right lines passing through said side faces.

9. The method of making heels which includes severing sheet heel stock material into a plurality of strips of such width that When piled on each other an elongated, laminated multiple heel block will be produced having two of its lateral faces opposite each other in planes closely approximatin the pitch or angularity of two opposite si es of the finished heel to be produced therefrom, piling and securing said strips together in the manner described, and then severing the multiple heel block thus formed at intervals throughout its length by transverse cuts on right lines to produce individual heel blocks.

10. The method of making heels which includes severing sheet heel stock material vother a heel block Will be produced having into a plurality of pieces of polygonal shape piling and securing said pieces together in and of such Width that When piled on each the manner described. A 1

two of its lateral facesiopposite each other ERASTUS WINKLEY Y in planes. closely approximating the pitch Witnesses: 'or angularity of the breast and back of the WARREN G. OGDEN, finished heel to be produced therefrom and ELsm PRESS.

copies of this patent may be obtained for five dents each, by addressing the Commissioner of Patents,

Washington, D. C. 

